Monday, March 18, 2013

3/13 Summary

Posted on behalf of Hannah:


In class we learned about weighted voting. Weighted voting is a voting system in which not all voters’ votes count the same. A weighted voting system is expressed in numbers as a list. There is a quota. A quota is how many votes are needed for a motion to pass. The weights of the voters in the system are how many votes each has. For example [3: 3, 1, 1] 3 is the quota and 3, 1, 1 are the votes. 3 is the dictator because that’s the only vote that counts. The other numbers are dummy voters because they don’t count. In this example [8: 5, 3, 1] there is no dictator because no voter has enough votes to decide the election. Voter C (1) is a dummy because no matter how A and B vote, Cs vote will never matter. In this example [9: 5, 3, 1] there is no dictator or dummy voter. Everyone has the same power which is called an unanimous consent system. It will only pass if all voters have the same vote. The second topic that we learned about is Shapely-Shubik Power Index. A Power Index assigns a number to each voter in a system. The number indicates how much power that voter has in that system. This Power Index uses the idea of         roll-call vote (a vote in which each voter is called on to vote in some order). With this power index we consider every possible order in which the voters in the system could vote, and then we see which other voter casts the pivotal vote (the vote that decides the election). 

7 comments:

  1. I Thought that is style of voting was pretty interesting, I have never really heard of it before until last class. I like the way how they determine it. Although, sometimes it can take a awhile to determine the vote the decides election, other than that, I believe its useful way.

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  2. I liked learning this type of voting method. It is very different from all the others we have learned but it seems to be pretty effective.

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  3. I also found this voting method interesting. The idea that, in some situations, the decision of one voter could influence the outcome of an election, which in turn influences the course of history, is fascinating to me.

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  4. This was an interesting unit to cover. It's never occurred to me to ever use a weighted voting system. I never really acknowledged that they even existed.

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  5. I like this style of voting. It seems very easy to work with

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  6. I like this style of voting. It seems very easy to work with

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  7. I dont like this system of voting because it appears that every voters individual vote is not counted equally. I would love to read about some more historical examples of how this could wwork to avoid negative voting disparities.

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